Jaguar kills off its model line, with no clear plan for the future

[Kiltonge]

A nice mix...

https://techxplore.com/news/2024-12-car-future.html

And Jaguar went for the ugliest...

Still all back-to-front with long, pointless bonnet ( hood ).

 

[Rhinocrates]

Hmmm, coincidence?

 

[Rhinocrates]

Anyway, I thought I'd do this as a slide show.

First, batteries have volume and mass, You have to put them somewhere. Let's compare the Jaguar EV prototype with a more or less equivalent-sized car, the Audi A6. Note the difference in proportions. The Audi is much higher and the designers have used tricks to hide its bulk, the most obvious being the black fillet in the lower door panels.

 

[Rhinocrates]

This is my guess about the battery position. The Audi uses the common 'skateboard' layout - a slab of batteries under the floor - while the Jaguar places the mass in the nose, though still rather back to help with weight distribution between the axles.

 

[Rhinocrates]

The Jaguar prototype has a lot of foam padding under the dazzle wrap, but I think that it still has the rear silhouette of the Type 00 concept. I do think that the tail will be wider than the concept though and won't taper as much in plan for regulatory reasons - the bumper would have to be wider and I think that there are laws in various countries about the minimum width/separation of the tail lights/indicators.

 

[Rhinocrates]

If you look carefully you can see the outline of a large panel here. It's rather large for the usual flap covering charging ports, but it may be peculiar to the prototype.

 

[Graham1973]

View: https://youtu.be/WPQWjY0qerY?si=ZcCpjRGNAzB5pIzH

 

[Foo Fighter]

I shall wait until I see the actual launch version or whatever they call the production cars.

It does seem like the ambitious plans one of the Lotus CEO's came up with a decade or so ago. That went a long way did it not?

I really want them to make it.

 

[Hood]

They will probably end up like Aston Martin and Lotus - in and out of bankruptcy with new CEOs popping in and out every other year.
Then Tata sells the Jaguar brand to a Chinese firm and we end up with Jaguar branded generic SUV EVs that look like 97% of all other SUV EVs ever built.

 

[Michel Van]

new on Jaguar and it no looking good

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AswomCZGEjo


Key words "Barbie car" will cost €181000 - Porsche are suddenly cheap in comparison
the close the Production for TWO YEARS to make "Barbie Car" the Serial Model
were they need around €2 Billion for next 5 years...

My opinion on Jaguar future:

 

[Graham1973]

More commentary from an automotive YouTuber...

View: https://youtu.be/B3hIwYi16YY?si=0hILbLlHIyoQjLLc

 

[Rhinocrates]

Jaguar's managing director explains.

Loading…

www.topgear.com

TL;DR:

JLR's own HQ company car park was full of Discoverys and Range Rovers, not Jaguars. These people couldn’t even sell free Jaguars to themselves.

"We have researched this intensely," he tells TopGear.com. "We've spoken to about 1,000 prospective clients, across the UK, North America, Europe, and China. We've talked to them in detail about our brand. And we've shown them the model lineup. One of the tools we use is conjoint analysis, which is very good at getting to what people are prepared to pay for a product.

"The clients told us you've got to change the brand and the whole ownership experience. So we've looked at every element because it all adds up to this term 'willingness to pay'."

Jaguar is too small to play in the mass-scale premium market, however inspired some of the cars might have been. Bigger rivals could always outspend Jaguar, and so out-engineer and out-tech it, making their lead unassailable. "It's dominated by purchasing and manufacturing efficiencies, and economies of scale."

Creativity wasn't enough for Jaguar. In fact, over the past 18 months things have gone bad for BMW, Mercedes and Audi in China, one of their main profit engines, because Chinese buyers have switched to local-brand high-tech cars. That further justifies Jaguar's new high-end boutique-car strategy, says Glover.

"Lots of BEVs are quite homogenous: cab forward design, small wheels that are good for range, higher riding because of a battery. Aero means they look like a bar of soap. You end up with vehicles that don't have emotional resonance. We've made the antidote. It's completely different. It's going to have incredible presence on the road."

 

[aim9xray]

In other words, "Move along. You're not the customer that we're looking for."

 

[Scott Kenny]

In other words, "Move along. You're not the customer that we're looking for."

I wonder how many customers there are for such a shape...

 

[Kiltonge]

Jaguar's managing director explains.

"Lots of BEVs are quite homogenous: cab forward design, small wheels that are good for range, higher riding because of a battery. Aero means they look like a bar of soap. You end up with vehicles that don't have emotional resonance. We've made the antidote. It's completely different. It's going to have incredible presence on the road."

That's an odd thing for a Jaguar exec to say given that one of the very few cab-forward EV designs was their own i-Pace, which ironically looked different to most things on the road.

 

[Rhinocrates]

Personally, I can see the 'why' of it all, but not being a psychic, I'll only wait and see how it turns out. I think they're resigned themselves to there being fewer customers and will depend on margins rather than volume. Should it fail, maybe Jaguar badges will be put on rebodied Range Rover Velars for a while. The Velar is a crossover made by Range Rover more like a saloon that the big Range Rover itself, which looks like a modernist Blenheim Palace.

Anyway, here's a 1959 Lamborghini, showing that radical rebranding has worked in the past.

 

[Rhinocrates]

By the way, some particularly long-lived companies (other than brewers, which were often monasteries) have survived centuries by relying on exploiting some unique essential skill while radically changing their market. Wilkinson Sword began making guns in the 18th century and then swords for the army. When swords became obsolete, they shifted to razor blades, which they still make today.

Mulliner has almost half a millennium under its belt, starting with saddlemaking in the 16th century, then coachbuilding.

Story of Mulliner | Mulliner | Bentley Motors

Explore the rich history of Mulliner coachbuilding and craft, from 1559 to the present day.

www.bentleymotors.com

 

[Yellow Palace]

When swords became obsolete, they shifted to razor blades, which they still make today.

Although they only actually stopped making swords in 2005 - their tooling was bought by Pooley Swords, who are still operating, although of course the volume is rather less than it once was.

 

[red admiral]

Anyway, here's a 1959 Lamborghini, showing that radical rebranding has worked in the past.

Here's a 2024 Lamborghini

 

[scautomoton]

To be fair to the new Jag, I do like the styling, I like that it isn't just another "bar of soap". It does look like a big luxury GT, and just because its a BEV doesn't mean is has to stop using traditional proportions. What I hate is the direction the brand is pivoting to, ignoring heritage, Founder's principles and their small but loyal customer base. Appeal to new customers by all means, but don't write off those you have nor their principles and outlook.

More bad news for JLR though. Sacking an employee/contractor because their previous employer found out they'd raised public concerns about a product they previously worked on and phoned up JLR to ask that they be gotten rid of. Despicable practice.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20nr3zdppjo

 

[TinWing]

Personally, I can see the 'why' of it all, but not being a psychic, I'll only wait and see how it turns out. I think they're resigned themselves to there being fewer customers and will depend on margins rather than volume. Should it fail, maybe Jaguar badges will be put on rebodied Range Rover Velars for a while. The Velar is a crossover made by Range Rover more like a saloon that the big Range Rover itself, which looks like a modernist Blenheim Palace.

Anyway, here's a 1959 Lamborghini, showing that radical rebranding has worked in the past.

View attachment 752800

Mr. Lamborghini was a successful tractor manufacturer who decided to build cars out of pure spite towards Enzo Ferrari. Apparently Ferruccio Lamborghini owned several Ferrari road cars which had multiple design and manufacturing defects, so he decided to track down Ferrari to make some helpful and constructive suggestions. When confronted on the shop floor, Enzo literally said he didn't care about road cars, only race cars, and if Ferruccio wanted to build a better sports car he could build it himself. Considering that Fiat later refused to sell parts to Lamborghini, it was obviously not a friendly invitation.
Lamborghini wasn't alone as a tractor manufacturer branching out into sports cars. David Brown bought Aston Martin, hence the DB models. Truth be known, both Brown and Lamborghini should have stuck with boring but profitable tractors.

 

[TinWing]

To be fair to the new Jag, I do like the styling, I like that it isn't just another "bar of soap". It does look like a big luxury GT, and just because its a BEV doesn't mean is has to stop using traditional proportions. What I hate is the direction the brand is pivoting to, ignoring heritage, Founder's principles and their small but loyal customer base. Appeal to new customers by all means, but don't write off those you have nor their principles and outlook.

More bad news for JLR though. Sacking an employee/contractor because their previous employer found out they'd raised public concerns about a product they previously worked on and phoned up JLR to ask that they be gotten rid of. Despicable practice.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20nr3zdppjo

Making broad, non-specific public statements about a previous employer doesn't making you any more a "whistle-blower" than complaining about your ex-wife. It's worth noting that the mechanical front suspension alignment/durability concern has nothing to do with the investigation over the purely electronic lane keeping assist. Personally, I've had any use for lane keeping and any driver who relies on it isn't fit to be driving. I've owned mass production cars that could too easily be knocked out of alignment and I've never seen a modern car where lane keeping assist actually worked reliably. You can't single out an upstart Vietnamese company. I could show you the various suspension repair bills for a vehicle from a very "reliable" brand.

This guy was doing contract work and wouldn't meet the legal criteria of a whistleblower under American law because he wasn't reporting to regulators or other legal authorities. Basically, he got into trouble by shooting off his mouth on social media. Much in the same way you can get into trouble blowing off steam about an ex-wife. When your employment is so very tenuous, you don't make trouble for past or present employers. Period.

 

[TinWing]

Jaguar's managing director explains.

Loading…

www.topgear.com

TL;DR:

JLR's own HQ company car park was full of Discoverys and Range Rovers, not Jaguars. These people couldn’t even sell free Jaguars to themselves.

"We have researched this intensely," he tells TopGear.com. "We've spoken to about 1,000 prospective clients, across the UK, North America, Europe, and China. We've talked to them in detail about our brand. And we've shown them the model lineup. One of the tools we use is conjoint analysis, which is very good at getting to what people are prepared to pay for a product.

"The clients told us you've got to change the brand and the whole ownership experience. So we've looked at every element because it all adds up to this term 'willingness to pay'."

Jaguar is too small to play in the mass-scale premium market, however inspired some of the cars might have been. Bigger rivals could always outspend Jaguar, and so out-engineer and out-tech it, making their lead unassailable. "It's dominated by purchasing and manufacturing efficiencies, and economies of scale."

Creativity wasn't enough for Jaguar. In fact, over the past 18 months things have gone bad for BMW, Mercedes and Audi in China, one of their main profit engines, because Chinese buyers have switched to local-brand high-tech cars. That further justifies Jaguar's new high-end boutique-car strategy, says Glover.

"Lots of BEVs are quite homogenous: cab forward design, small wheels that are good for range, higher riding because of a battery. Aero means they look like a bar of soap. You end up with vehicles that don't have emotional resonance. We've made the antidote. It's completely different. It's going to have incredible presence on the road."

Jaguar has been citing Bentley as an example of the production positioning and production volumes they are seeking. The irony is that Bentley had a heritage of relative reliability under Rolls Royce ownership. Then VW invested a fortune in the brand. The sales failure of the VW Phaeton actually benefited Bentley as the quality mass production engineering of the Phaeton and quality control of the brilliant Dresden plant were inherited by the Flying Spur. In contrast, Jaguar has a terrible reputation, not just historically, but currently for the fire prone battery of the i-Pace and premature failure prone Ingenium 2.0 diesel

It's notable that Jaguar interviewed 1,000 "prospective clients" rather than irate current and recent owners. My guess is that it will be hard to find 1,000 paying customers per year in the whole EU, let alone the UK, for an impractical electric monstrosity. As brand, Jaguar has no remaining good will.

 

[TinWing]

Jaguar's managing director explains.

Loading…

www.topgear.com

TL;DR:

JLR's own HQ company car park was full of Discoverys and Range Rovers, not Jaguars. These people couldn’t even sell free Jaguars to themselves.

"We have researched this intensely," he tells TopGear.com. "We've spoken to about 1,000 prospective clients, across the UK, North America, Europe, and China. We've talked to them in detail about our brand. And we've shown them the model lineup. One of the tools we use is conjoint analysis, which is very good at getting to what people are prepared to pay for a product.

"The clients told us you've got to change the brand and the whole ownership experience. So we've looked at every element because it all adds up to this term 'willingness to pay'."

Jaguar is too small to play in the mass-scale premium market, however inspired some of the cars might have been. Bigger rivals could always outspend Jaguar, and so out-engineer and out-tech it, making their lead unassailable. "It's dominated by purchasing and manufacturing efficiencies, and economies of scale."

Creativity wasn't enough for Jaguar. In fact, over the past 18 months things have gone bad for BMW, Mercedes and Audi in China, one of their main profit engines, because Chinese buyers have switched to local-brand high-tech cars. That further justifies Jaguar's new high-end boutique-car strategy, says Glover.

"Lots of BEVs are quite homogenous: cab forward design, small wheels that are good for range, higher riding because of a battery. Aero means they look like a bar of soap. You end up with vehicles that don't have emotional resonance. We've made the antidote. It's completely different. It's going to have incredible presence on the road."

Jaguar has been citing Bentley as an example of the production positioning and production volumes they are seeking. The irony is that Bentley had a heritage of relative reliability under Rolls Royce ownership. From the Turbo R onward, Bentley was on a roll. Then VW invested a fortune in the brand. The sales failure of the VW Phaeton actually benefited Bentley as the quality mass production engineering of the Phaeton and quality control of the brilliant Dresden plant were inherited by the Flying Spur. In contrast, Jaguar has a terrible reputation, not just historically, but currently for the fire prone battery of the i-Pace and premature failure prone Ingenium 2.0 diesel

It's notable that Jaguar interviewed 1,000 "prospective clients" rather than irate current and recent owners. My guess is that it will be hard to find 1,000 paying customers per year in the whole EU, let alone the UK, for an impractical electric monstrosity. As brand, Jaguar has no remaining good will

 

[CJGibson]

Wellllll...when I lived in the Midlands in the 90s (using Midland Counties Publishing's shop as my reference library) I used to see the Jaguar design mules and dazzle jobs driving around the back roads of Warwickshire. Actually, usually being loaded onto a recovery vehicle.

They all looked quite mad. However what eventually ended up in the showrooms looked nothing like them.

Wait and see what appears.

Chris

 

[Foo Fighter]

I hope they keep up the continuation cars and restoration of classic's. Gutted if they choose not to.

 

[Rhinocrates]

I hope they keep up the continuation cars and restoration of classic's. Gutted if they choose not to.

Considering that the highest luxury brands do this because they know that it's essential to their brand value, I'd be gutted if they didn't as well. If they are engaging with customers as a 'lifestyle', they'll have to cater to them.

It's early days yet but hopefully over the coming year as we approach the unveiling of the first production model, we'll learn more about their intentions for bespoke design, continuation models, and restoration.

Jaguar owns the Daimler brand, which has been dormant for years. That might be used for bespoke models.

 

[Graham1973]

Comentary on the design from a Blogger who covers car design including some of the concept cars I've posted videos of recently.

This post is being drafted 4 December, two days after the formal unveiling of Jaguar's Type 00 battery-powered concept car design, and a week or so following release of a controversial video commercial hyping Jaguar management's attempted revitalization of the brand. Plenty of Internet bytes and pixels have been spilled already regarding the ad and now the two concept cars.

https://carstylecritic.blogspot.com/2024/12/jaguar-type-00-concept-car-design.html

 

[pathology_doc]

They could have got back all their good will if they'd just brought this back... but with reliable internals:


Instead, they chose to commit marketing suicide, and it doesn't help that the man in charge has a name which can be repackaged to suggest something extremely disgusting. What were his parents thinking?

 

[Scott Kenny]

They could have got back all their good will if they'd just brought this back... but with reliable internals:
View attachment 753501

Instead, they chose to commit marketing suicide, and it doesn't help that the man in charge has a name which can be repackaged to suggest something extremely disgusting. What were his parents thinking?

I would have recommended the classic E-type front end and done whatever was required to have reliable internals.

Just like the Mustang, Camaro, and Challenger went with design cues straight from their most iconic and highest sales years. And like the F-Type was trying to do.

Let Jaguar make cars. Not SUVs, that's Rover. I'm sure as hell not buying an SUV with Jaguar badges when I could have a Rover (Land or Range) for the same money.

 

[Rhinocrates]

A road test of an XF. It doesn't mention the Type 00 concept or Jaguar's rebrand but JayEmm does spend much of the test talking about what went wrong for Jaguar.

1. Terrible customer service (duh). They really need to work on this if they want to establish themselves in the top luxury tier.

2. Trying to sell what they thought customers needed rather than what they wanted. This led to short-sighted model planning, such as emphasising diesels, which nobody wants now, and not bothering with halo cars. Halo cars may not be profitable on their own but they make customers desire the more standard models that they can actually afford. Not doing hotted-up XFs and XEs dripping with carbon was a huge mistake when BMW was making Ms and Mercedes had AMG cemented their image as a car for ageing golfers only.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naOSlF4p23k

 

[pathology_doc]

I would have recommended the classic E-type front end

We all have our particular tastes. My family owned two Jags and both had this aesthetic. I remember the looks and the ride quality with fondness (I was old enough to get to drive the second one; it was beautiful). What it cost my father to keep in repair, not so much.

A school-friend of mine's father bought all the technical and repair manuals and learned to do all the work on his Jags (matching pair for him and his wife) himself.

 

[Rhinocrates]

He's absolutely right - cars people don't buy in numbers anymore and diabolical service - but aktshually, jaGUar knows this.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpzaq9gRT3Y

Loading…

www.topgear.com

"The clients told us you've got to change the brand and the whole ownership experience. So we've looked at every element because it all adds up to this term 'willingness to pay'."

The dealers will be different, presenting the cars beautifully, not just standing them on a carpet. They'll offer you fancy food and drink, talk about collabs with artists and the like. For owners, Jaguar plans storytelling about how the cars come to be, even dialogue with the creators. "Buyers want to be treated like an insider. They'll have podcasts of Gerry [McGovern, design head], our engineers, access to information that they wouldn't otherwise get. They're joining a community."

The pain of servicing will be eased too. The car can automatically alert Jaguar of its own needs, so Jaguar will plan the dealer appointment and get a courtesy car – the same sort you're driving, not some pool Disco Sport – to where you need it.

 

[Scott Kenny]

"The clients told us you've got to change the brand and the whole ownership experience. So we've looked at every element because it all adds up to this term 'willingness to pay'."

The dealers will be different, presenting the cars beautifully, not just standing them on a carpet. They'll offer you fancy food and drink, talk about collabs with artists and the like. For owners, Jaguar plans storytelling about how the cars come to be, even dialogue with the creators. "Buyers want to be treated like an insider. They'll have podcasts of Gerry [McGovern, design head], our engineers, access to information that they wouldn't otherwise get. They're joining a community."

Eh, not sure about that part of the equation.

Porsche has not needed to do this, though I'd argue that Porsches tend to sell themselves as "driver's cars". Someone who would want to buy a Porsche enjoys the act of driving, the feel and sounds of the car in action. I suspect that the same is true of Ferrari buyers, but I have questions about the lack of good sound from their current halo car, despite all the F1 technology in it.

I would have positioned Jaguar as the "driver's cars" part of Rover Group. 2-door sports cars, 4-door fun to drive cars.

The pain of servicing will be eased too. The car can automatically alert Jaguar of its own needs, so Jaguar will plan the dealer appointment and get a courtesy car – the same sort you're driving, not some pool Disco Sport – to where you need it.

That would be nice, assuming that they can make it work.

This also means that the dealers will need a couple of courtesy cars of each model. And that is likely going to be expensive.

 

[Arjen]

He's absolutely right - cars people don't buy in numbers anymore and diabolical service - but aktshually, jaGUar knows this.
"The clients told us you've got to change the brand and the whole ownership experience. So we've looked at every element because it all adds up to this term 'willingness to pay'."

In short, you're not buying a car, but an experience.
Car please, nix the experience.

 

[Hood]

What a load of guff. Dealers talk enough bollocks as it is without waffling about that kind of crap.

 

[Graham1973]

View: https://youtu.be/wpzaq9gRT3Y?si=JNbNkNs1k88IPYER

 

[Rhinocrates]

In short, you're not buying a car, but an experience.
Car please, nix the experience.

In that realm, that's what is selling. For example, there are magnificently engineered hypercars made, and they have to be to be sold... but not necessarily driven.

This is satire, but it's not to far off the mark. The people who are buying an experience are buying an experience in which they are the stars.

Loading…

www.topgear.com

Despite being a road-going distillation of the company’s vast technical expertise and know-how in aerodynamics and powertrains, the billionaire was chomping at the bit to completely ignore all of that and put it in a big, dark storage room for two decades.

'Twas ever thus. Look at the patronage of the arts by the oligarchs and Emperors of the Renaissance.

This is armour made by Negroli. Obviously it was never used in battle and the man commissioning it never believed that he would use it that way. That was the case with the art commissioned by the Borgias et al. Even, or especially now, art is both a means of displaying wealth or a way of putting capital away from prying authorities, laundering it, and then channeling it into your next scheme. That's why a banana duct-taped to a wall fetches millions.

It's quite enlightening looking at the contracts between artists and their patrons in the Renaissance. They'll state how much various pigments will be used. Lapis lazuli, which gave a beautidil deep blue for example, was very expensive and as blue was associated with the Virgin Mary, a painting of her in a blue cloak would be especially prestigious. The contract would say that blue pigment had been paid for by the patron and the artist had better use it.

As JayEmm says, but put more politely, Jaguar wanted to make good cars but its market wanted toys and status symbols.

Yes, we common folk think that a car should be beautiful, practical, fun to drive, and all that. The super-rich see everything as either a toy, a statement, an investment, or all three - but none of the things that you or I think it should be.

The rich are different - F Scott Fitzgerald

Ironically - and appropriately - we remember the artists today. Who cares what cardinal paid for it? Well, back then, the artists did.

 

[Rhinocrates]

I would have positioned Jaguar as the "driver's cars" part of Rover Group. 2-door sports cars, 4-door fun to drive cars.

That would be nice, assuming that they can make it work.

This also means that the dealers will need a couple of courtesy cars of each model. And that is likely going to be expensive.

I don't expect jaGUar to be making a profit for years. Fortunately it has the Land Rover side and overall owner Tata to pay the bills, providing their faith holds. Alone it would be doomed.

I could never afford one anyway, but yes, that's what I'd like to see. Returning to roots and making do with small volumes seems to be a good idea, or at least a virtuous one when everyone else is piling on tech and weight and everything looks the same.

Jag execs constantly talk about challenging Bentley these days. I'm dubious about that because Bentley seems to have found a perfect rapport with their customers who want genuine luxury GTs. jaGUar is better off pursuing a different sector, the fashionistas that they were clearly aiming for in that controversial ad.

There's an English coachbuilder, David Brown - no relation to the past owner of Aston Matin - who's carved out a small niche catering to customers who want the reliability and sophistication of modern cars with the simplicity and beauty of ones from the 60s. The Speedback takes the mechanicals of a Jaguar XK and clothes it in the body of a DB5 clone and there's a 'remastered' Mini too. I have my fingers crossed for a remade Jag XJ6 or XJ12 as their next project.

Before and after:

 

[Arjen]

I, like Oscar Wilde, have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best. Therefore, I would like David Brown to do a replica of this, with modern suspension, and possibly a big modern V8. Pretty please? I am not asking for a restomod Facel Vega HK 500, because that would be sacrilege.